Rodrigo Flores is a Peruvian Licensed Psychologist with Master’s studies in Clinical Psychology and Teaching for Higher Education. He integrates the psychological team and the Mental Health commission in the association Más Igualdad, which fights for the welfare of individuals and families composed of LGBTIQ+ people. In this interview for the 3Love Inc. blog, we talked about the main advances and pending challenges in the struggle for the recognition of the rights of the LGBTQI+ community in Latin America, the activities carried out in his association in favor of the mental health of LGBTIQ+ people, the importance of celebrating Pride month, among other topics.
What do you think are the main advances in the struggle for the recognition of LGBTQI+ rights in Latin America in the last 20 years?
There have been quite significant advances in the past decade mainly. Among the rights that have been recognized for LGBTQI+ people is the right to equal marriage, which recognizes that all same-sex couples have the right to form a family and have a life project together. This is something that has been recognized in different countries. Currently Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay and Chile have an equal marriage figure. Other countries such as Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador and Peru do not have a figure of recognition for people of the same sex, but in some cases, there are alternative figures, such as de facto union or civil union. In some cases, such as Peru, there is a bill, but it has not yet been approved. On a par with Peru are the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, where there is no legal figure in this regard. In spite of that, we can see that there are several countries in the region that during the last decade and a little earlier have been recognizing this. Regarding the right to gender identity, in 2009 the pioneer countries in the recognition of this right for trans people were Uruguay and Brazil. But a country that has always been very emblematic in the legal protection it gives to the identity of trans people is Argentina, which managed to pass a gender identity law in 2012. And after that, other countries such as Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile have been joining. So, without a doubt, I believe that this has been a great advance for two of the main demands of the different LGBTQI+ civil society collectives.
What are the pending challenges in this struggle for the recognition of rights?
Lately there has been a greater concern about passing different laws that recognize hate crimes, that is, crimes that are motivated mainly because the person is LGBTQI+ and also to criminalize conversion practices, as these efforts to attempt to change people’s sexual identity or expression or orientation are called. This is something that is still being discussed today and has not been approved or is present in very few countries. Brazil and Ecuador already have an express regulation. Mexico has recently joined, but beyond that there has not been greater recognition. Although it can be noted that there has been progress in the recognition of several rights in Latin America, the truth is that today there are still many countries where sexual and gender diversity is not only unprotected, but also criminalized in many cases. For example, in parts of Central America and the Caribbean, sexual diversity is criminalized. In countries such as Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, among others, there are laws that criminalize sexual diversity with different degrees and modalities, but which in many cases can include imprisonment for people, from 5 to 15 years. So, there are still places where criminalization exists or where any initiative that recognizes rights is repealed or blocked by different conservative and reactionary groups. Among them, there is the case of Peru, where there is still no law that has been discussed in the plenary of the Congress and that has been approved. We know that there have been initiatives in this regard, there has been a proposal for a gender identity law and another for equal marriage in past Congresses, but none of them has prospered and so far, none has been approved.
And in the case of Peru, what challenges are still pending?
In the Peruvian scenario, there are many challenges in general. The most talked about in recent years since these reactionary and ultra-conservative movements began to organize themselves better, was the battle around education. These anti-rights discourses are focused on preventing any kind of comprehensive sex education, which includes a view that values sexual and gender diversity. So, there is a great difficulty there, since today this narrative of “gender ideology” has been established, which supposedly wants to homosexualize children. It is very complicated that today there could be an advance towards a comprehensive sexual education that includes a focus on sexual and gender diversity where it is talked about in schools and it is normalized that it is just another expression of human sexuality. This is very far away today. So, it is a great challenge because many times the discrimination and violence suffered by LGBTQI+ people are based on these stereotypes and prejudices. On the other hand, another challenge that is very important is the denied right to identity of trans people, because in Peru there is no gender identity law that recognizes that trans people need an administrative way to make the necessary changes in their identity documents so that they reflect who they really are, because without this access the only thing left is a judicial way. In other words, in order for a trans person to be able to make a change in his or her document, including a change of name or sex, he or she cannot go through a procedure like any other person, but practically has to sue the Peruvian State to be able to make this change, and this exposes trans persons to a very long process. In addition, judges often subject trans persons to degrading treatment and requests, such as asking for photos of their bodies or requiring them to have undergone an operation, etc. In the end, this re-victimizes trans people and denies them easy access to their identity. If you don’t have a document that really represents who you are, many doors are closed to you. If a trans person cannot have a document that reflects who he/she is, he/she will not be able to access health, education or any other service that we can, because we have that document. On the other hand, there is also the need to criminalize conversion practices, which is something that unfortunately still exists in Peru and in many parts of Latin America. And another pending issue is equal marriage, because there are many couples who have managed to get married abroad and yet the State refuses to register them as a marriage, despite the fact that it already has all the formalities of a foreign country. This poses a great challenge for people who traveled abroad to get married to live their life projects here as they had planned, since upon entering the country they lose rights, for example to decide on the health of their partner or on inheritance issues, among other things.
Recently a decree was published that qualified transsexuality as a mental disorder, but without any scientific support. How could this measure affect the LGBTQI+ community and further violate their rights?
This issue is very important because from Más Igualdad we have tried to follow it closely and we have had the opportunity to participate in some meetings with the Ministry of Health, as a technical support to the College of Psychologists in Peru. In May, a supreme decree was published in El Peruano newspaper modifying the Essential Health Insurance Plan (PEAS), that is to say, it is a document containing the whole list of interventions, check-ups, procedures, which have to be covered by all the health insurance companies that exist in the country, whether private or public. The problem was that the diagnoses included in this update were taken from the ICD10, which is the International Classification of Diseases, an official United Nations document where all existing diseases and disorders are registered. However, version 10 of this classification dates from the early 1990s, i.e., it is totally outdated and ignores all the progress that has been made both scientifically and in recognition of Human Rights in recent years. So, some diagnoses that existed in that version are no longer applicable today, such as sexual or gender identity disorder, egodystonic homosexuality, fetishistic transvestism, among others, which pathologize diversity. In addition, they were included in the chapter on behavioral disorders and mental disorders. By including in the PEAS these diagnoses of that outdated version, the message has been given that it is being considered as official diagnoses that recognize that gender diversity, specifically in the case of trans persons, is something pathological and sick, and that it is also a behavioral pathology or a mental pathology, because that is precisely how they were classified at that time. That’s when the problem started. Obviously, it is an extremely dangerous message, because it comes from the Peruvian State and one of the multiple dangers that this measure generates is that it validates all these messages that seek to pathologize diversity. In Más Igualdad we have received some anonymous cases of people denouncing that, after this decree was published, they had been harassed in their workplaces, for example with questions like: “What do you think about what the Ministry of Health says, that now you are ill?”. Or they are told: “What happens is that you have problems. But I don’t say so, the State says so, the Ministry of Health”. And we can also hear this in some of the media, especially in the radio stations in the regions, which say “These deranged people, as the Ministry of Health calls them”. So, in the end, this type of message is validated and endorsed. That is the greatest danger. On the other hand, it generates a barrier for trans people in front of the State. The relationship between the Peruvian State and people of sexual and gender diversity is not a very good one, because usually when we go to a public center of the State, the attention we receive is not the best, many times it is full of prejudices and replicates those messages of hate. In addition to this mistrust, there is a validation of these pathologizing messages by the State, which results in trans people being more reluctant to seek health services. So, the damage is quite great. And let us remember that in Peru there is no law that recognizes the right to identity of trans people. Therefore, in addition to an already precarious situation, which exposes trans people to not being able to easily access work, education, etc., because they do not have their identity document, this pathologizing message exposes trans people to greater risk. In some cases, this decree was even being used as an argument to deny them the change of name or sex on their identity card.
What measures were taken to reverse this decree, from civil society and organizations that advocate for the rights of this community?
The seriousness of the situation led to the convening of a national coordination, which was made up of different LGBTQI+ rights organizations and human rights organizations. This implied that there was a self-management work of these different organizations, where Más Igualdad also participated, so that they began to organize themselves, appoint different commissions and official spokespersons, to raise their voice of protest. This led to the drafting of a statement by the national coordination, which demanded the repeal of this decree and also that responsibility be assumed for the damage that had been caused. This led the Ministry of Health to initially issue a statement in which it distanced itself from any type of pathologization, but which in the end did not imply any concrete change to what had been done. Then the national coordinator agreed that different demonstrations and protests would be carried out until this derogation was finally achieved. That is why different events were organized, such as several sit-ins and the reading of this statement in front of the Ministry of Health. We also held different meetings called by the Ministry, where we explained the terms to stop all these demonstrations, because the goal was to continue with this citizen protest as long as the decree was not repealed. Additionally, in Más Igualdad we gathered signatures of mental health professionals to raise their voice of protest against the decree, we put them together in an official letter and sent it to the Ministry. We were also invited to participate as support to the College of Psychologists of Peru, to provide our technical opinion on the decree.
You are part of the organization Más Igualdad. What do they do and what is their purpose?
Más Igualdad is an organization that identifies as intersectional feminist. We seek the recognition and visibility of LGTBIQ+ people in Peru. That is why we advocate for the recognition of their rights in general and we also seek to value and give visibility to diverse families, that is, families that are composed of LGTBIQ+ people. Más Igualdad has a long history of activism. Initially it began as a group of young activists, mostly lesbian and bisexual girls who were advocating for the Civil Union campaign at the time. Then, as time went by, it became the campaign for equal marriage in Peru and finally around 2017, it came to constitute Más Igualdad with the intention of covering more issues. Currently Más Igualdad is an association that has different lines of work to achieve the goal of making Peru a country that values diversity and in which LGTBIQ+ people enjoy full rights and are also visible, both they and their families, without any fear or coercion. Within the lines of work, we have mental health, where we seek to specialize specifically in the mental health of LGTBIQ+ people.
What can you tell us about the activities carried out by the mental health committee of Más Igualdad?
The Mental Health committee of Más Igualdad is mainly composed of people from the association who voluntarily carry out different activities in favor of the mental health of LGTBIQ+ people. What we seek is to raise awareness and carry out actions that promote the mental health of LGTBIQ+ people in their daily lives. We know that many times we talk about mental health from a more academic or intellectual approach and we want to get out of that scheme, we want mental health to be a task of all people, because we can all be agents of mental health and also that this can be identified and developed in our daily lives. We seek to develop activities that imply a change in people’s lives, in favor of their mental health, and we also understand it as a community work, that is to say, we recognize that mental health has been approached for a long time from a more individualistic and institutionalist focus. For example, when we talk about mental health, scenes of a mental asylum come to mind, where people are confined or isolated. We want to get out of that model, which is something that is also happening at the country level because Peru is betting on the community mental health model, which seeks to deinstitutionalize mental health care, to get out of the classic hospitals and involve the community, that is, the social space where the person moves in his or her daily life, in the recovery of that person. That is why we at Más Igualdad also seek to implement this approach, not only to focus on intervention when there is a mental health problem, but also to approach it from the point of view of promotion and prevention. That is why we have carried out different initiatives that go for example in alliance with other organizations, to have a small workshop or a space for conversations on some general topics, how to recognize emotions, techniques to better regulate our emotions and different activities that are oriented to the spokesperson on issues that involve and affect the mental health of LGTBIQ+ people. In October we seek to carry out different activities to help commemorate World Mental Health Day, which is October 10, and also to accompany the publication that we will make of our second study of the mental health of LGTBIQ+ people in the Peruvian context. Now, within the projects of Más Igualdad there are also other initiatives focused on mental health. For example, an emblematic service that we have in the association is the Psychological First Aid “Rainbow Emotional Health Kit”, which is a free service of psychological attention by chat to which a LGTBIQ+ person can access to be listened to and to be given some tools and recommendations so that he/she/they can be better. And on the other hand, there is the research work to know the profile and the state of mental health of LGTBIQ+ people here. Finally, we are working on the education and training of mental health professionals and other professionals such as educators, on the affirmative approach, that is, a look that values and respects sexual and gender diversity in psychotherapeutic intervention, but that can also be applied in the educational context, among other scenarios.
June was LGBTQI+ Pride Month. Why is it important that this is still being celebrated at the present time?
It is especially important because there is still a long way to go regarding the issue of rights in our country. Unfortunately, within the same community, each of the letters of the acronym has its own reality and its own circumstances. There are identities that have restricted basic rights to date, such as the right to identity of trans people. Likewise, we are seeing in the current political context a growth of these anti-rights discourses that threaten not only to block any kind of progress, but are also trying to return to previous criteria that had already been left behind, for example, with respect to sexual and gender diversity. So I think it is very important to continue using a date like Pride to continue raising our voice, so that Peruvian society continues to remember that we are there, that we are visible people, that we no longer have the fears of before, despite this conservative onslaught, we are not afraid to demonstrate and that this also helps more people who may feel alone, who think there is no one else who is going through a similar experience to theirs, can find a safe space to begin to embrace their identity.
